A satirical blog about media, marketing, advertising, politics, pop culture, etc. All references to actual companies, products, people, etc. is for the purpose of parody. All writing is copyright by Greg Medernach, and is mostly intended as absurdist humor, and as a portfolio of comedy and creative advertising material. Questions and Comments: unconditionedresponse@yahoo.com

Saturday, December 17, 2016

Duracell Star Wars Hospital Ad

Here we have a cute scenario where kids get Star Wars toys for Christmas, and then
their imagination kicks in as the toys become real and they find themselves on
a mission to deliver an R2 unit to the Princess.

But then the kids get chased by Stormtroopers because they
chose to go to the hospital via the Death Star. Why didn’t they just go another
route? They lead the Stormtroopers right to the rebel base! And they don’t even
leave the girl a blaster or a light saber after they drop off the R2 unit with
its secret files or whatever! The Stromtroopers might kill her after they
leave! And the rebellion will be crushed in one swift stroke! The Force forbid!

But this scenario is humanitarian in that the injured Stormtroopers
are at least already near a hospital so they can get medical attention quickly.
But, oops: the hospital is the rebel base! All the injured Stormtroopers have
to do is radio ahead to the Empire and massacre everyone! Oh, no!

Oh well, I’m sure the kids meant well when they made it
possible for the Empire to find the rebel base so easily.

This ad is basically using the same strategy all Star Wars ads I see use (basically
acting like the product zaps you into the movie, and without any reason for
wanting to buy the specific product advertised), except this one doesn’t crib
shots from the movie(s), and it also has a sweet message of delivering a toy to
a sick girl in a hospital. I like it, but it would be nice to see why we’d want
to buy Duracell batteries as opposed to, let’s say Energizer batteries.

I think the ad might be better if it showed why we’d want
Duracell instead of another battery. I did one like this recently for Energizer
where two swear off in a light saber fight, and one light saber just cuts
through the other one’s blade, and then the winner cuts open the loser’s light
saber to show a lesser brand of batteries in it.

So in this one, I think it might be fun to show the kids
chased by the Stormtroopers, who have better blasters until the kids replace
their batteries with Duracell, and then all of a sudden their blasters are
better than the Stormtroopers’ blasters, and the kids drive them off with a
show of force.

Or show the kids in a firefight with the Stormtroopers, but
then the Stormtroopers’ batteries die, and their blaster stop working, so they
run away. And this while the kids say they must not be using Duracell
batteries.

I think that would be a better strategy for selling
batteries than just the fantasy thing, especially when you consider that it’s
most likely the parents who will be buying the batteries, and Duracells are
expensive, so they might want to know why they should buy Duracell as opposed
to another brand.